Seventeen-year-old Krescent Dune fought monsters for a living. Like all gladiators before her, she entered the battle arena each time knowing it would be an unforgiving playground of cruelty and death. 

Young Kress earned her reputation as the undisputed champion of the pit by compiling 78 straight kills. Scythe crabs, mutated aquabats, one-horned derinos, byotors, raptors, varmee and wurm lizards—they were all vanquished during her six-year winning streak. “I’m a fighter,” she said at one point. “I kill despite myself and I will not go down so easily.”  

Because of her prowess in the pit, Kress was recruited to join an expedition into a labyrinth of tunnels and caves below the surface of her homeland Kar Atish. Along with several redshirts, her mission was to explore the final frontier. Like the crew of the USS Enterprise, she agreed to boldly go where no man or woman had gone before. 

Kress knew the expedition was basically a death sentence. Undoubtedly, there would be indescribably horrible creatures below waiting to pounce on her. In fact, entering the tunnels for the first time was like stepping inside the mouth of a beast, its teeth sharp and pointed beneath her feet. 

And, as expected, Kress and her crewmates encountered a multitude of creepy-crawly things almost immediately—mostly giant insects and multi-tentacled ocean beasts. Even though she was a famous monsters killer, she couldn’t protect all of her redshirts. In my opinion, the best bits of Somewhere in the Deep were these epic belowground battles. 

After weeks of spelunking, the doomed patrol finally reached the end of their journey to discover they were merely pawns in a mad game of political power and greed. No reader will be surprised by this plot twist. The entire endeavor was an open secret from the very beginning. 

There were a couple of unexpected moments along the way, however. At one point, Kress and her gang encountered an entire community of Shadefolk living in the hollow mountains below the surface. Born in darkness, these people existed side-by-side with the monsters in an uneasy subterranean détente. More importantly, the Children of Shade were the protectors of a supercharged holy substance that, if mishandled, would remake (or destroy) the entire world. 

Before leaving the underworld and returning home, Kress gets the biggest shock of her life. She’s swallowed by a giant cloud monster (!!) and experiences a transcendental moment. Transformed and imbued with godlike mental perception, she accepts her true mission in life. No spoilers from me, but here’s a hint: Her career as a monster slayer was now over.

[ Somewhere in the Deep / By Tanvi Berwah / First Printing: January 2024 / ISBN: 9781728247659 ]